LegalTech West Coast 2012

What a hectic 48 hours at LegalTech West Coast, at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites, Tuesday and Wednesday, May 22 & 23.

Here's a quick recap -- (scroll down for the photo gallery)!

•  "Challenging Predictive Coding to Better Defend It," by Michael Roach: The speakers on LegalTech West Coast's predictive coding panel, "Under Fire: Defending and Challenging Technology-Assisted Review," often seemed more intent on challenging judicial and legal industry assumptions about the review technology than on defending it, says Roach. Read it here.

• "IPads & Lehman Brothers," Day 1 keynote speaker Kevin Genirs (left), global general counsel for investment banking at Barclays Capital, discusses lessons learned (with the help of the other Judge Peck — James) during the Lehman Brothers crash.

Then a fast-paced pragmatic panel of David Bustle (right), IT director at BuchalterNemer, and David Neesen (left), CIO, Greenberg Glusker, gave a road map of how to use iPads and other tablets in a legal practice. Read it here.

• The Day 2 Keynote was by Joel Brenner, of counsel at Cooley, who -- like many effective keynote speakers, played to everyone's paranoia discussing cyberspies preying on lawyers and their clients who do business in China and Russia. Read it here.

 • Wrapping up our coverage was my commentary, "Lessons Learned from LegalTech for Law Technology Vendors," where I mused about the dramatic changes in customer service at the Bonaventure, and how vendors might want to follow suit. Read it here.

Aderant's Jim Hammond offered his insights (and excellent advice) on the topic with a blog post, "How to be a Happy Customer," here. (Hat tip, Jeffrey Brandt.)

Check out Twitter posts from the show, from Rob Robinson, Recommind, Traveling Coaches, LexisNexis, LegalTechShow, Phillip Lemel, RenewData, Derick Roselli, Perry Segal - Charon, Monique Altheim, ABBYY USA Associated Blogs, Anatoly Soyfer, eDiscovery, lawtechnews (me), and others: #LTWC.

Photos: Monica Bay except Bonaventure (Florian)

The 24/7 Andrew Peck Show

Greetings from LegalTech West Coast in relatively-smog free and sunny Los Angeles. Day one was full of energy and standing-room only presentations with, as usual, tons of e-discovery in the seminar rooms (and on the busy exhibit hall floor). Day 2 is today (May 23), at the downtown Westin Bonaventure -- one day tickets are available if you want to head over and get some education, demos, and CLE credits.

Topic A among the L.A. EDD crowd, as expected, is the closely-watched Da Silva Moore case, where U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Andrew Peck has ordered the use of computer-assisted coding (aka predictive coding). Law Technology News is one of those closely-watching, our most recent story is here.

On the blawg-o-sphere, attorney Sharon Nelson, (left) president of Sensei Enterprises, has been monitoring the DSM sideshow in her ride the lightening blog. See her latest post, "Da Silva Moore: EDD's Version of Keeping Up with the Kardashians," is  here.

Peck and his Second District colleague Lisa Smith gave a terrific program Thursday evening at the New York City chapter of Women in Discovery -- demonstrating his trademark wit and substantive knowledge. See "Federal Judges Preside Over Women in E-Discovery Meeting."

But Tuesday's LTWC keynote address reminded us that Peck isn't a one-trick pony doin' nuttin' but e-discovery 24/7/365. (He did win LTN's 2011 Champion of Technology Award). Peck's turf also has included overseeing another matter that kept lawyers chewing their fingernails -- to say nothing of anybody with a dollar in a bank. Kevin Genirs (left). In his keynote address yesterday, "2008 v. 2012: Lessons from the Lehman Brothers," described how Peck oversaw the frantic, sleep-deprived mega-lawyered transactions under excruciating deadlines that ultimately resulted in the sale of Lehman Brothers ("for the price of our building") to Barclays, praising Peck for recognizing the global impact of the sale on the stability of financial markets, and Peck's nonstop efforts to get the deal consumated. Genirs, who had been general counsel, investment banking, at Lehman's, was one of the 10,000 Lehman workers who had new jobs with Barclays when the sun rose the next day.

Later this morning, check out www.lawtechnologynews.com for my colleague Michael Roach's  report on "Under Fire: Defending and Challenging Technology-Assisted Review," which featured Irell's Tom Werner, O'Melveny's Jeffrey Flower, Oracle's Pallab Chakraborty, and moderator Andrea Gibson, from Kroll Ontrack (the sponsor of the Litigation Technology Track." Yes, DSM and Peck were front-and-center in the discussion!

Meanwhile, you can keep up with all the substance and occasional drama about Peck on our website's home page www.lawtechnologynews.com, and its E-Discovery/Compliance "channel" -- and right here at EDD Update. Onward to Day 2! 

Update 5/24: Oooops. Who knew there were two Judge Pecks in the Southern District of New York! Actually, many -- and Silicon Valley consultant Mark Michels, a member of LTN's editorial advisory board, was the first to advise me that I goofed. It wasn't Andrew Peck, it was Judge James Peck, of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court. But you get my point.

P.S. Here's Michael's story 

Photos: Monica Bay, except for Sharon Nelson (courtesy of ride the lightening)

Second Act: Graham Smith & William Bice

In LTN's April cover story, we profile two entrepreneurs who accomplished the dream of 99% of legal technology vendors: to create a product and/or company that caught the eye of one of the industry giants, and to see it for a lot of money. In most cases, the principals cash the check and head for exotic locations.

But at LegalTech 2012, two men who hit the jackpot decided they weren't done with our community. William Bice, founder of ProLaw practices management software, and Graham Smith, founder of LiveNote litigation support software, came back for "act two" after selling to Thomson Reuters' [prior entities]. Both launched new web-based products that compete with their original offerings -- Bice's LiquidPractice (and a second product, Exemplify, that is a document creation and comparison tool for transaction lawyers), and Smith's Opus Magnum, with integrates with other EDD software and helps uses develop their cases after they have processed their data collections.

Will they triumph twice? Check it out here.

What Not to Do ....

• First, anyone who has ever suffered through a tedious PowerPoint presentation may well get a kick outta this one from the Laughing Squid. Hat tip: Russ Curtis. 

• Second, Bob Ambrogi found this hard-to-believe-it's-for-real lawyer advertisement. As he says, the humor "fails miserably:"  Hat tip: Jeffrey Brandt. 

 

Aloha, Steve Jobs

I have just finished Walter Isaacson's compelling biography of Apple's Steve Jobs, one of the most fascinating portraits of a leader I have ever encountered. 

Dylan Baker reads the unabridged audio version, which is very, very long, but contains not one minute of excess. From start to 656-page finish, Isaacson creates a portrait of a brilliant, difficult, defiant, determined, passionate, mean-spirited, visionary, headstrong, OCD, insightful, etc., etc., etc., man.

I am still processing my reaction to the content, but I don't remember any biography that so inspired me. No doubt, part of the fascination is because of my San Francisco Bay Area roots — I am just a few years older than Jobs and grew up about 15 minutes north of Palo Alto, and was at U.C. Santa Cruz for my undergrad years, so I resonated to many of his influences.

The book helped me better understand technology issues, including the two opposite philosophies behind Apple and Microsoft, and the turning point (in my opinion, the iPhone more than the iPod) where everything changed. Steve Jobs insisted on a "closed" system that was intuitive and user-friendly, where every device easily integrates with any other Apple device — but users can't even change a battery. Bill Gates' model was creating software that could be licensed by just about anyone and used however they pleased. The book chronicles the development of both companies, and how they competed, but also how they intersected and even cooperated from time to time. 

The dominant theme of the book is how Steve absolutely insisted on the marriage of art and techology — to the point of almost absurdity. (He probably defines the term "micro-manage.") Jobs worshiped simplicity and minimalism, and intuitive operation of devices, and he pushed his teams to near breakdowns in his demands for absolute perfection in products. He was not afraid, even at the last stages of production, to insist on revisions. It had to be right. Period. Not every product was a success, indeed, some were dramatic flameouts. But he kept pushing.

One of my favorite things about Apple is the packaging, and the visual delight of opening the box — another target of Jobs' compulsive, hands-on management. I also like the never-on-sale pricing that removes any concerns that you could have gotten a better deal at another store. (Ditto). And speaking of stores, they were another focus of Jobs' acute attention, all the way down to choosing the floor tiles and the quality of the glass used for the stairs.

And it all comes down to that wedding of art and technology. 

The biography also helped me better understand my own career path and how I run Law Technology News magazine. I don't have the talent, vision, or resources of Steve Jobs — but the mix of art and technology has been, and will continue to be, a driving force in Law Technology News magazine. With art director Shane DeLeers (also an Apple devotée) we always push to integrate design and art with the words of the magazine.

The book also reinforced my passion (or as many would say, obsession) for clear, clean, accessible, jargon-free, gender-neutral language — with positive, active words rather than passive. I believe fiercely in the anthropology of language — that the words and images we choose create the perceptions and realities of the reader. My goal with LTN always has been to empower our readers (lawyers, judges, CIOs, IT, CFOs, GCs, paralegals, vendors, et. al) and help us understand that technology really can help us build better businesses, better communities, and better relationships. 

Ultimately, there are so many lessons in this book. Among them: That you don't have to be perfect to effect change. That failure is inevitable on the path to success. That conflicting technologies can co-exist. That you need to actually listen to your doctors. :( That OCD behavior has its benefits :) 

So here's to passionate, fearless, imperfect leaders who inspire us to do our best work. And here's to art and technology. Thank you, Steve Jobs, we miss you already.

Videos of Isaacson discussing the book (scroll down) here.  

Image: Simon & Schuster

Matthew Kluger Pleads Guilty on Insider Trading

Hands down, one of the most fascinating stories we have ever covered in Law Technology News was our June 2011 cover story, "Catch Me If You Can," about how lawyers and their organizations responded to the astounding insider trading prosecution against Matthew Kluger. (LexisNexis subscribers can access it here.)

In the article, Tam Harbert detailed how Kluger, who worked at four of the world's most prestigious law firms, managed to acquire approximately $37 million (with two accomplices) by simply reading file labels to figure out information about pending mergers and acquisitions.

This week, Kluger pleaded guilty Wednesday to all four counts against him. Check out the report by Tom Huddleston Jr. in The Am Law Daily.

Our package looked at the lessons learned by law firms, and how they are balancing the difficult tightrope between protecting confidential data while still providing as open an environment as possible internally to faciliate collaboration and innovation. In addition to ramping up ethics training and security, one of the interesting themes that emerged was whether law firms may need to rethink the traditional "MYOB" (mind your own business) hands-off posture of dealing with employees, and become more proactive about offering support services (overt or subtle).

While no firm will be able to completely outwit brilliant sociopaths, organizations should watch for red flags that might signal potential employee meltdowns big or small. Especially in the aftermath of the economic earthquakes. A recent PriceWaterhouse Coopers poll of 1,600 adults who make $30,000+/year found that 61% of respondents are stressed about finances, and 49% have a hard time paying monthly bills --- even 36% of high earners ($100K+). As I wrote in my editor's note in June, "No doubt, there is a huge difference between thefts fueled by arrogance and those fed by desperation, but both can lead to tragedy. Perhaps it's time ... to reach out."

Check out my conversation with with Harbert here.

Name Game

Legal technology vendors often have, shall we say, "unusual" company names, e.g., Daegis, Fios, Aderant, Recommind. LTN's news editor Brendan McKenna became intrigued on the origins of these monikers, which generated this article in the December edition of Law Technology News magazine (short version in print, long version on the website).

In today's commentary, McKenna explores ever more archeology, again finding the history of corporate names from A (ABBYY) to Z (ZL Technologies).

Image: Clipart.com

Is Email Dead?

Patrick Oot forwards a fascinating post from the Federal Computer Week blog that suggests that email may soon be as dead as Pan Am (airline, and rumor has it, the TV show).

"Thierry Breton, who is the chief executive of Atos and former minister of finance in France, argued in a recent speech in the United Kingdom that 90 percent of staff time spent on emails is wasted. He wants his workers to speak to each other by phone or in person, or to use instant messaging and Facebook-type interfaces for online communication instead."

"It is not normal that some of our fellow employees spend hours in the evening dealing with their emails," Breton said, according to a Nov. 28 report in the Telegraph. "The deluge of information will be one of the most important problems a company will have to face. It is time to think differently."

(Somehow I'm not sure if Steve Jobs would agree with that.)

I don't know about you, but I'm not so sure I want more in-person dialogues. I agree that email can be more entrapping than the La Brea Tar Pits (see my colleague Michael Roach's recent commentary) but the last thing I want is more meetings.

What do you think?

Image: Clipart.com

Aloha & Mahalo

Just back from a small jolt of a vacation -- to the Hilton Waikoloa Village -- where the air, sea, and sky help rejuvenate the brain and body.

As a former California girl, I still default to Hawaii when I need a restart, and tend to graviate to either Princeville or Kona. On this trip, my mom and sister joined me, and this property is ideal for two generation trips. It's stunningly beautiful; big enough to accommodate ADD personalities (which run in my family); yet intimate. I highly recommend it. 

Another secret: as an East Coast-based workaholic (who isn't these days?) it is the perfect venue to accomplish both play and work: with the five-hour time difference, I fall asleep at 9 p.m., wake up at 2 a.m., and thus have at least five hours of blissful solitude each day to crank out time-sensitive editing and memos. (I've learned never to share a room with my mom or sister.) And who's going to complain about being able to work with tropical breezes that bring the sweet smell of Na'u (gardenia, for us mainlanders) through my open balcony doors.

A common topic among most of my friends is the challenge of how to "have a life" when you have a time-consuming job that you actually love. Last summer, SNR Denton's global CIO Andrew Jurcyzk and I played hookey and went to a Yankees/Cubs game at Wrigley, and were talking about how we balance work and family. Basically, we concluded that while we seem to work 24/7, the trick is to take advantage of the ebb and flow of our schedules, in order to grab a vacation day here and there for a quick refresh. Sometimes, an away game, or just working from home for a few days can be a big boost for both productivity and stress reduction.

But there's no substitute for getting on a plane and changing your scenery for a real vacation. You never know where ideas will come from. On a past trip, enroute to Kauai, I watched "An Inconvenient Truth," which was the genesis for LTN's "Green Law" features.

This year's trip to Hawaii was also a milestone trip — I achieved "million mile" status on United's Mileage Plus — which means that I now never have to worry about getting enough EQMs again (that's elite qualifying miles for those of you not obsessed). Assuming that UAL doesn't evaporate like Pan Am, Eastern, et. al — that means I am "Premier Exec/Gold" for life, which will make getting upgrades much easier. Talk about a stress reducer!

On this trip, one of the conclusions I reached as I flew toward the 50th state was that I have neglected this blog for the last few months as we've been consumed with the redesign and relaunch of both LTN print magazine and our EDD Update blog. Me bad! I promise to get back on track and practice what I preach — to keep my spirit and this blog refreshed!

Images: Hilton Waikoloa

Tuesday, September 11

 

Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks. I’ve been struggling with my own reaction to the milestone — which ranges from wanting to just shut my eyes and not have to ever think about it again; to my frustration that I am not nearly articulate enough to effectively wordsmith the poetry the situation requires.

I still harbor survivor guilt. How could I have had the “personal best” day of my career — with colleague David Horrigan of The National Law Journal, at Ground Zero, finding members of our legal community and chronicling their escapes and losses — and at the end of that day walked home without so much as a scratch? I think about that often, and can take comfort in just one word from that sentence: community.

Unfortunately, before that Tuesday, I already had too much experience covering California disasters, including the Loma Prieta earthquake, the Oakland firestorm, and the brutal shooting by a deranged former client at Pettit & Martin — all events that turned acquaintances into widows and rendered friends homeless.

As Horrigan and I walked downtown on September 11, 2001, I knew from the San Francisco reporting that it would be the strength of the people I would meet that would carry me through the day. And that it was important, to the living and the dead, to tell their stories.

We interviewed New York Law School students (from left) Yadhira Gonzalez, Kelly Lerner, Nanette Aridas, and Joshua Sanders. Lerner was buying a new suit for a recruiting interview when the planes hit, her boyfriend, Joshua Sanders recounted his panicked race to find her and shakily described the horrific images of people so desperate they jumped. Aridas also tried to keep her composure as she worried about her husband's fate.

We listened to attorney Alan Chorne (right), who ran from his office at 150 Broadway, convinced he was doomed. He recited his prayer: “I’m going to die. Please make it quick.”  We talked with administrative judge Merryl Snow (left) and attorney Peter Haskel (lower right). We sat with Father George Rutler (lower left), a Catholic police chaplain who works with local bar associations, who had been at the World Trade Center, performing “last rites” for  victims. His friend, Father Mychal Judge, was blessing  firefighters as they entered the burning buildings, and administering last rites to the dying. He was killed when the South Tower collapsed, the first official fatality documented by the city of New York.

We told their stories in the September 12 edition of The New York Law Journal; our reports and photographs were picked up throughout ALM.

On Sept. 11, 2001 we were just about finished producing the October issue of Law Technology News. But on Sept. 12, we jettisoned the near-finished pages, and turned to our community for help. Within 48 hours, you delivered. We reconfigured the entire issue to the theme of disaster recovery, offering checklists, advice, consolation, and, hopefully, comfort.

Among the many contributors, Lindsay McCall, then with Morrison & Foerster, outlined how firms could conduct business on cell phones and wireless PDAs when servers were down. Loren Jones, then with West (now Thomson Reuters) offered a comprehensive guide to how lawyers could use scanners to rebuild document files. Consultant Edward Poll provided a detailed disaster recovery protocol plan. Michael Latz, then a senior account manager with Cingular Wireless, wrote about why his plane did not leave Newark airport. Our legal technology community also immediately offered their services to those who needed anything from lawyers to help process claims, to replacing office technology.

Our friends at The Late Show with David Letterman graciously allowed us to publish Letterman’s searing monologue that many observers said helped stabilize the emotions of New Yorkers, when he returned to air, at Mayor Rudolph Guiliani’s urging, on Sept 17.

Judith Flournoy, then at New York’s Kelley Drye & Warren, submitted a moving poem, including this passage: “In our pain and our anger there is honor and more; What we cannot forget, What we will not forget, Our memory is long. .... We will overcome, we will survive, We will win this battle, we will live life.”

Indeed. We are a community.

A decade has passed, and I am again editing the October issue of  Law Technology News magazine. As I did 10 years ago, we will dedicate it to a member of our community, Arizona lawyer Donna Killoughey. Her husband Gary Bird called her that Tuesday morning, to say he just had one last quick last meeting -- breakfast with this new employer Marsh & McLennan, before he'd be heading home to her. 

Downloads: 

September 11, 2001 Ground Zero Photographs: Bay911Photos

From the October 2001 issue:

• Bay Fiat-Lux
• Bay EditorsNote
• Flournoy Poem
• Ashby Jones report on firms
• Horrigan "Sea of Paper"
• Lindsay McCall
• Edward Poll
• David Letterman

 

Kozinski: First Amendment is Dead

The First Amendment is dead, a victim of the internet, declared Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

In a compelling presentation replete with his trademark wit, Kozinski gave the eulogy April 12  at Golden Gate University School of Law's third annual Intellectual Property Distinguished Speaker program in San Francisco. Professor Marc Greenberg, co-director of he school's IP law program, introduced the popular judge to a packed lecture hall of students and a sprinkling of lawyers who earned one hour of continuing legal education credit. (Greenberg also spoke April 12 on ALM's Social Media: Risks & Rewards conference). The free program was open to the public, and sponsored by Kirkpatrick Townsend & Stockton and Squire Sanders & Dempsey.

The moral of Kozinski's speech may well be, "pick your battles."

Read more here.

Extras:

• Video: The Recorder: http://bit.ly/LTN613

• Ambrogi/Williams Lawyer 2 Lawyer podcast with Kozinski. 

Photo: Jason Doiy/The Recorder

Judge Grimm Ponders Disappointing FRE 502

Chief Magistrate Judge Paul Grimm of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland ponders why Federal Rule of Evidence 502 — which encourages cooperation among counsel with the goal of reducing the costs of production of electronically stored information and reviews -- "has not lived up to its potential," in the current issue of the University of Richmond's Journal of Law and Technology (JOLT). Writing with his law clerks, Lisa Bergstrom and Matthew Kraeuter, Grimm says the explanation "may have to do with the reality that a disappointingly small number of lawyers seem to be aware of the rule and its potential, despite the fact that the rule is over two years old."

Another factor: "Courts have not interpreted Rule 502 with sufficient consistency in reported decisions to enable practitioners and their clients to predict how they will fare if they attempt to take advantage of the rule to reduce the need for manual, document-by-document pre-production review by either employing electronic search and retrieval methodologies or entering into time and money saving non-waiver agreements."

The same issue of JOLT includes Jason Baron's article on "Law in the Age of Exabytes," addressing "information inflation" and current issues in EDD search; and also includes articles on technology-assisted EDD review and a look back at how the 2006 FRCP amendments have "reshaped the e-discovery landscape," and revitalized civil justice.

The articles are downloadable from the JOLT website.

(If you aren't familiar with Grimm's rulings, check out Craig Ball's delicious account of Victor Stanley II.)

Any Place I Have Wi-Fi Is Home

Randall Harris, senior deputy counsel for Los Angeles County, says its time for the law to catch up with reality: Many youngsters (and parents) are homeless, but not disconnected — they can be easily reached via cellphones.

"[A] large percentage of homeless people have cell phones, smartphones, e-mail addresses — and even blogs. As mobile phones and e-mail become less expensive and more accessible, so too must the law and policy evolve," he argues. 

"Providing proper 'due process' notice to parties in the Los Angeles Superior Court’s Juvenile Dependency Court is a challenge as complex as the litigants themselves. By requiring service of process through mail or publication (see California Welfare and Institutions Code §§ 290 et seq), the legislature fails to account for the high rate of poverty and homelessness prevalent among parties in dependency," says Harris, in his thoughtful analysis of the applicable laws. "It also fails to recognize that technology can help service of process be delivered in new, more efficient ways."

Harris advocates for a change in court rules, to allow the use of e-mail for notification of hearings in child dependency matters.  "The law should be modernized to keep pace with technology and the wireless reality of the 21st century. Having no physical address should no longer be a barrier to receiving due process," he argues, in "The Case for Providing Electronic Notice in Child Welfare Proceedings."